The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination

The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination

Synopsis

Is a pentecostal-charismatic worldview defensible in light of contemporary science? In The Spirit of Creation Amos Yong demonstrates that pentecostal thought does indeed have merit in scientific contexts. What's more, he argues that pentecostal-charismatic views regarding the dynamic presence and activity of the Spirit of God and the pluralistic cosmology of many spirits have something important to add to the broad discussion now taking place at the crossroads of science and religion.

Interacting with many scientific fields of study -- including psychology, sociology, evolutionary science, cosmology, and more -- Yong's Spirit of Creation demonstrates the significance of pentecostal ideas to the ongoing dialogue between theology and science.

Excerpt

I have been thinking about the issues discussed in this book for a long time, going all the way back through my seminary and even undergraduate education. the initial question, in brief, is this: Is the pentecostalcharismatic worldview within which I have been raised defensible in our contemporary scientific context? the following pages sketch only a very preliminary and programmatic response to this question. As pentecostal and charismatic readers will see, my answer is yes, albeit in a carefully qualified manner.

More importantly, however, I have also more recently come to believe two things: first, that my pentecostal concerns are not just my own, but that they pertain to a much wider swath of Christian believers in particular and perhaps even to monotheists and theists in general, and second, that some of the pentecostal-charismatic perspectives to be registered along the way are important for the wider theological discussion as well as the ongoing dialogue between theology and science. Might it indeed be the case that pentecostal-charismatic views regarding the dynamic presence and activity of the Spirit of God in the world have something to add to the theology and science discussion? Even more audaciously, might the pluralistic cosmology of many spirits in the pentecostal-charismatic worldview challenge the reigning paradigm at the intersection of theology and science? These questions not only animate this book; they are also intuitions that, if explicable, have the potential to open up discussions at the interface of theology and science in unprecedented directions. Thus I urge especially readers who are involved in the theology and science conversation or . . .